French lawmaker under fire over Nazi Roma remark

View of the memorial to the Roma and Sinti victims of the Nazi Holocaust in Berlin, on October 24, 2012. France's interior minister has called for a lawmaker to be "severely punished" after a journalist recorded him allegedly saying Hitler may not have killed enough Roma.
(AFP/File)

Photo taken on May 26, 2006 shows lawmaker Gilles Bourdouleix in the western town of Cholet. France's interior minister has called for a lawmaker to be "severely punished" after a journalist recorded him allegedly saying Hitler may not have killed enough Roma.
(AFP/File)

PARIS, France (AFP) – France's interior minister called Tuesday for a lawmaker to be "severely punished" after a journalist recorded him allegedly saying Hitler may not have killed enough Roma.

Gilles Bourdouleix, an MP and mayor of the western town of Cholet, reportedly muttered the words on Sunday as he confronted members of the travelling community who had illegally set up camp, according to a recording posted on the site of regional daily Courrier de l'Ouest.

"Maybe Hitler did not kill enough," Bourdouleix is heard saying after the Roma had reportedly given him the Nazi salute.

Bourdouleix, who is a member of the lower house National Assembly with the centrist UDI party, said his comments were taken out of context and alleged the recording was tampered with.

Confrontations between French authorities and Roma -- nomadic people widely known as gypsies who were killed in their hundreds of thousands by the Nazis -- erupt frequently.

Bourdouleix's comments have caused an uproar. Interior Minister Manuel Valls described them Tuesday as "unacceptable" and called for the lawmaker to be "very severely punished by law".

"These comments are a defence of crimes committed in the Second World War, a defence of Nazism and coming from a mayor, from a member of parliament, it's completely intolerable," he said on TV channel i-TELE.

The case has already been referred to public prosecutors who will examine whether his comments constitute a "defence of crimes against humanity", said authorities in Maine-et-Loire, the department where Cholet is located.

Bourdouleix also risks being kicked out of his UDI party, whose executive committee meets on Wednesday.

The lawmaker has vociferously defended himself, telling AFP on Monday that his comments had been taken out of context and pointing to "cuts" in the recording, which he alleges was tampered with.

France has a policy of systematically dismantling illegal camps and repatriating Roma of Bulgarian and Romanian nationality -- the legality of which has been questioned by the European Union, the United Nations' human rights arm and other watchdogs.

The European Association for the Defence of Human Rights says almost 12,000 Roma were evicted from camps across France last year, 80 percent of them forcibly.

A French law stipulates that every town of more than 5,000 inhabitants must set up sites able to house members of the travelling community -- be they Roma, circus performers or fun fair organisers.

In Cholet, authorities say the site devoted to travellers was temporarily closed due to works, adding the Roma had moved on since Sunday's incident. It is unclear what nationality they were.

The Roma, a nomadic people whose ancestors left India centuries ago, have long suffered from discrimination.

They were killed in their hundreds of thousands by the Nazis during the Second World War, alongside Jews and homosexuals.